The journey is the destination.

Who, What, Where, When, How and Why Am I?

I’ve been thinking about what this blog will be used for the last couple of days. I’m used to thinking in miltownkid ways. The basic premise of the character miltownkid was “saving the world.” Ultimately, saving the world was just something to do. Just killing time. The guy who created that guy wasn’t really about saving the world. He ultimately got to being about… nothing. So he just started making things up… to kill time. That’s what he likes to tell himself anyway.

I was going to use this blog in a utilitarian way. To keep up those world saving antics and to create a digital portfolio to eventually land an internship and then a job. These two things may still happen, but they will happen as a result of focusing on something else. That something else will be digitally deconstructing miltownkid, then Casey Abbott Payne then… whatever is left after that.

One thing I learned about creating miltownkid is that Casey Abbott Payne is just a creation. A creating that “I” didn’t have as much control over, but a creation nonetheless. My most accurate interpretation of the self is a grand opera so complex that it feels real. The amount of mental gymnastics necessary to first see through this illusion and then do something with it almost doesn’t seem worth the trouble. I never really had a choice.

Math

I was, and perhaps still am, extremely gifted at math. Not in the sense of being a human calculator, but understanding advanced mathematics was never hard for me, and I imagine it still wouldn’t be. What I’m about to lay out doesn’t need advanced mathematics to understand, but I think having the (natural) ability to comprehend advanced mathematics makes one’s ability to comprehend simple mathematics almost automatic.

I can’t remember when exactly I started doing the math for the state of the world, but I know I was always exposed to the suffering that exists within and without of the United States for my whole conscious life (my parents were activists while I was growing up). This led my mathematical mind to trying to understand why things were the way they were, are the way they are and looking for a solution.

The internet started to evolve at the same time as my inquisitiveness. This granted access to facts and figures that are commonplace today, the “99%” vs the “1%” for example. The 99% vs the 1% is actually a good example of where having an advanced mathematical mind sees through simple mathematics.

What do those numbers even mean? They are based on wealth but… what does wealth even mean (mathematically)? I’ve long thought that there should be a quantifiable way to measure well-being and then a way to measure one’s ability to gain and sustain well-being. While we have yet to really invest in the research to figure out quantifiable ways to measure these two things, my basic understanding of them states that it is within the grasp of every American to have these two things. The problem isn’t economic material lack. The problem is in the currently unquantifiable economic mental lack.

The fact that proposed and acted upon solutions are based on the idea that human problems arise from economic lack is actually the problem, mathematically speaking. The thing about math is being mathematically gifted for math’s sake forces one into doing advanced mathematics for the sake of doing advanced mathematics. Once you begin to cut through the illusion you see that everyone is participating in a mathematically fallacious system.

Ideas like the “1%” are trying to expose the fallacies of the system but do nothing more than throw mathematical fuel on a mathematical fire.

I shied away from doing math and science for the sake of being smart and doing math and science because the math and science of math and science are broken. I think it’s hard to argue with the idea that humans want to live a life of joy. Math and science only seem to recently be investigating math and science’s relationship with matters of joy and happiness.

Who, What, Where, When, How and Why Am I?

Put simply, math. I don’t yet understand the relationship between math and consciousness, but there is one. There is a simultaneously extremely simple and extremely complex mathematics which produces this self awareness. This morning I have been unable to get this image out of my head.

There was a point in “time” that was “me.” What does that even mean? I suppose some would equate an individual sperm as being “them” but that isn’t true. “I” was just as much the egg. When did “I” come into being? When was consciousness formed? I certainly wasn’t self aware then. There wasn’t a self to be aware of. When did I become I? When “I” was born and given a name? Language can’t even accurately express the questions I have. Looking at the photo above. Who is THAT? THAT is what I am. What is that THAT?

Final Thoughts

The main audience for this blog will be myself. The reason I’ve always liked doing things in a public fashion is because you gain insight from the collective. You get exposed to things you may not have found on your own. As I type right now my main motivation for this site will be figuring out why I’m motivated to do the things I do and strip myself down to the bare minimums. The bare essentials necessary to become an “unencumbered spirit.”

This is all I’ve ever really been interested in. I suppose the time has come to really delve into this topic. Steep myself in it. Live it. Be it.